MODERN RUSSIA.*
How little we know about the youngest of European nations ! We look at the map of Europe, and we see that Russia occupies more than a half of it. 1Ve know that the Russian Empire stretches far away into Asia ; how far exactly the Royal Geographical Society itself is probably unable to inform us. Of its history we have but a vague notion. We get a few and far between glimpses of the hideous atrocities of Ivan the Terrible, the suitor of our own Elizabeth ; of Peter the Great, with his iron will and his iron walking-stick ; of Catherine II., "the Messalina of the North "; of Alexander I., who figured in the streets of Paris and London as the conqueror of Napoleon ; and of yet another Autocrat of All the Rus.sias, who towered above his fellow-men by the head and shoulders, and who was the bugbear of Europe,—the Tsar Nicholas. This is a fair summary of the amount of our fathers' acquaintance -with the great Northern empire. But the Crimean war super- vened, and our interest and curiosity were thoroughly aroused. The Russian power was but a vast, dim figure, shrouded in Arctic mists, and screened by impenetrable forests — a shadow, it is true, but one of gigantic bulk and threaten- ing aspect. The fall of Sevastopol rudely tore away the mantle which had hitherto enwrapped this mysterious form. The bursting of the bubble of Russian military glory is only to be paralleled by the collapse of French military power in the present year. But great events sprang from it. A new era dawned upon Russia. The death of the Emperor Nicholas seemed to remove an • Modern Russia. By Dr. Julius Eckhardt. London: Smith, Elder, and Co.
incubus from his people. It was like the sudden slaughter of some huge dragon that had long kept the land in terror by sacrificing the inhabitants to satisfy the cravings of its own monstrous appetite. The overthrow of the old system was complete. Everything has- to be reformed in the most liberal acceptation of the term. At first there seemed scarcely a trace of even the old habit of thought. But before long this effervescence began to subside. The old spirit began to manifest itself again, and the battle between the old school and the new soon raged with great fury. The disciples of the new school had generally much the best of it, though they were often worsted. Russia is a land of strange contrasts. Her aris- tocracy is, externally at least, the most brilliant and accomplished in Europe, while her peasantry is the most ignorant and degraded ; her people are the most superstitious, and in all outward seeming the most pious in the world, and yet they treat -their clergy with the most studied contempt ; while the reforming sovereign who decreed the enfranchisement of five-and-twenty millions of serfs, could with the same pen refuse permission to his subjects to smoke in the streets of his cities.
It is with the reign of Alexander II. that Dr. Eckhardt, in the admirable book before us, concerns himself. His principal topics. are the emancipation of the serfs, Russian communism, the orthodox Greek Church and its sects, and the Russian Bahia provinces. Our author has done well to put the emancipation of the serfs in the foremost place. The Tsar from the moment of his accession, was credited with large-hearted and liberal views, and the conviction was general that, with the remodelling of the. agrarian laws, a new life, social and political, would be born, in Russia. Dreamt of by one sovereign, coquetted with by another, it was destined to become a reality only in the reign of Alexander II. Various and minute were the investigations of the
question in all its ramifications, and long-protracted were the negotiations with the proprietors ; and it was only on the 19th of February (0. S.), 1861 that the decree was finally made law, and, the peasant set free from the shackles by which the usurper Boris. Godunof had bound him to the soil.
The old custom had been that a certain amount, usually a third, of every estate was reserved to the proprietor, the remainder fall- ing to the use of the village community. But the peasants were obliged to cultivate their master's portion without wages, and three days a week were generally devoted to this service. The serfs were divided into two classes, those who tilled the soil and the household servants, who were entirely dependent on, and sup- ported by, their lord. The former possessed their land in common, which was divided anew, according to families, every nine years._ It by no means followed that the head of a family received the- same allotment at each recurring redistribution, and it frequently happened that the portions assigned him did not lie all together The individual possessions of each man consisted of his house an garden, horses, cattle, and movable goods. Runaway serfs were severely dealt with, but any peasant desiring to quit his village and settle in the towns could do so by purchasing his freedom or by paying an annual tax to his lord. Many proprietors derived, large sums in this way from serfs who had become wealthy mer- chants and tradesmen. By the Emancipation Act the freedom of the serfs, both agricultural and domestic, was assured, and tha village communities were allowed to acquire absolute possession of the land by purchase, or to hold it under easy leases. Nothing else was altered. The household servants were to remain in their former positions, receiving fixed wages, until the 19th February-, 1863, when they could terminate their engagements if they pleased. The serfs who were living in the towns remained for the same- period under the old conditions, except that the tax paid to their lord was limited to thirty rubles (about £4) for a man and tea rubles for a woman. At the same time, all obligations on the proprietor to provide for his serfs in sickness, scarcity, or old age- ceased.
Previously to the Emancipation Act, it depended solely on the- will of the proprietor as to what portions of his estate should be assigned to the village communities, the only rule being that each peasant was to receive four-and-a-half dessiatins (about twelve acres) for his support. Here, then, arose a difficulty. It was the peasant's interest to get the cultivated and most productive part of the land, the lord's to keep in his own possession as much of those portions of his estate as possible. This question was left to the parties themselves to settle, under the supervision of officials- appointed for the purpose and styled Peace Mediators. It was impossible, of course, to apply the same rules throughout such a diversified territory as the Russian Empire. It was therefore divided into three zones, each of which was subdivided into regions. Special regulations were drawn up for each of these divisions,.
according to the varying conditions of soil, climate and agricul- tural life and customs. These regulations were most com- plicated, and the transition period during which they were to be carried out was originally fixed to terminate in the present year, but a much longer time will probably elapse before the land question may be considered as settled. Not the least difficult part of the business is to be found in the fact that the Russian peasant, as a rule, hates work almost as much as the negroes in the West Indies showed they did after their emancipation, and he is ready for the sake of immediate and temporary gratification to surrender all his prospects of future well-being and prosperity.
The serfs settled in towns were the first to recognize the benefits conferred upon them. They were no longer in danger of being recalled, at the caprice of their lord, from their lucrative occupations, to resume the old drudgery they had abandoned ; and the tax which they were to pay for the next two years was a mere trifle. The lower orders of these, such as mechanics, droschky- drivers, and the like, after the fashion of true Russian peasants, immediately proceeded to get drunk, and paraded the streets in bands, shouting, " Volyushka!" " Volyushka," "dear little freedom." The agricultural serfs, on the other hand, did not at first comprehend what had been done. Their ignorance was played upon by political agitators, and disturbances arose in various quarters. They thought that the real Emancipation Act of the Tsar had been tampered with in its transmission to them. They said, "We belong to the lords, but the land belongs to us," and they imagined that it had been the Tsar's intention to give them absolute possession of the land without any payment to the proprietors. These disturbances were, however, easily suppressed, though not without bloodshed, and the re-adjustment of the land tenure has since gone peaceably on. But it is not until a compre- hensive system of education—such as that now in contemplation —is in force throughout the land, that the Emancipation Act will bear the full fruits contemplated by its enlightened originators.
The altered relationship between the proprietor and the peasant would have necessitated a thorough remodelling of the adminis- tration of justice, even if this had not been loudly called for from other causes. Bribery and corruption flourished to an extent hardly credible among Western nations. Process was so long pro- tracted as almost to put to the blush the venerable age of our own Chancery suits. The law-books were so completely out of date, so impractical, and so thoroughly incompatible with modern wants as to allow the greatest latitude to the judge. Added to this, the judge himself had very frequently no special legal acquirements, and the course of justice was continually interfered with by all kinds of officials—who were not legal even in name—either to check the progress of the proceedings, or to influence the decisions when they were at length reached. The "Fundamental Law" published on September 29 (0. S.), 1862, enacted the independence of the Courts of justice from the executive, the public and oral character of the transactions, limitation of the Courts of appeal, the introduction of a jury in criminal matters, the abolition of privileged jurisdictions, and the appointment of all judges by the State. The mere recapitulation of these reforms will suffice to show what enormous abuses had hitherto prevailed. Dr. Eck- hardt's verdict is, "these new regulations have proved to be ex- cellent; they have gained the confidence of the people, and have raised the sense of right." At the same time, a new arrangement of provinces and districts was proposed, based on the principle of self-government. It is true that this was confined chiefly to agricultural affairs, the encouragement of local industry and trade, and other similar matters; but all these had hitherto been dependent on the government, and the concession was universally bailed as a great boon. These provincial assemblies have as yet accomplished but little. The jealousy of the peasants excludes the nobles from them, and those of their own body who have been elected, being incapable, through their ignorance and want of cultivation, of large and unselfish views, have chiefly regarded these boards as the means whereby to obtain large salaries for themselves. Still all this would have been bettered in time, and the Govern- ment would have proceeded on their path of internal reform, had not an event occurred which brought its advance in that direction to a full stop. The Polish insurrection broke out, and the Liberal party in Russia were known to feel strong sympathy with the Poles. Alexander Hertzen, the distinguished Russian exile, boldly declared for Polish independence. His journal, the Kolokol, published in London, managed in some mysterious way, despite all prohibition, to penetrate into Russia, and was read by every one, from the Tsar himself down to the lowest peasant who possessed the accomplishment of reading. Its influence was enormous, and the situation became one of the greatest gravity. At this juncture, Michael Katkof, the editor of the Moscow Gazette, stepped forward to the assistance of the Government. He had hitherto been one of the most consistent of the reformers, and had incurred considerable ridicule by his persistent admiration of English models. In a series of admirably written articles, he now set forth that it was no longer the time for the indulgence of liberal ideas and experiments, but that it was the duty of every true Russian to assist in putting down with a firm hand all attempts at internal anarchy. He set himself the task of demolishing the Kolok,ol, and succeeded so well that Hertzen's influence sank to zero, and Katkof reigned in his stead. From that time he has exercised a power such as no other journalist has ever wielded. Nationality—from the Russian point of view—became the universal watchword. Liberals, Democrats, Panslavists ranged themselves as one man under the Government banner. The Russianizing of the Polish and all the other non-Russian provinces by any and every means was strenously advocated, and the strange alliance between democracy and absolutism, thus acci- dently inaugurated, has remained in full force down to the present time, as being the beat safeguard against the aristocratic party, which is equally dreaded by both.
Any work on modern Russia without an examination of Russian communism would be incomplete. According to Dr. Eckhardt it was " discovered " by the well-known Haxthausen in 1842. It was not the only one of his "discoveries." Where the Russians saw nothing but traces of their old nomad life, he recognized peculiar revelations of the Slavonic character destined to have an all-important bearing upon the solution of many an intricate social and political problem. Hertzen took up the matter, and heralded it to the world as "the new formula of civili- zation." When the revision of the agrarian laws was in contem- plation the Government was inundated with memorials to abstain from interference with the communistic system. The Democrats were even loud in their demands for its extension. The Emanci- pation Act, as we have mentioned above, made no alterations in the relationship between the individual and the community, no in the periodical reallotment of the land. Nevertheless, the inten- tion of the Government was plainly to benefit the individual peasant, by giving him some higher aim in life than that of satis- fying the merely animal wants of existence. How does the com- munistic system help the Government in this respect? The short-comings of the man who will not work are made good by the community, that is, by the man who will, work. The thriftless drunken idler is supported by the com- munity, that is, by the sober and industrious man. If he fail to pay his taxes or to fulfil any other obligation the State lays upon him, the community is answerable. If he become bankrupt, the loss does not fall upon him, but upon the community.. Another grievance is, that however hard a man may work to. improve his plot of ground, there is no guarantee that at the next redistribution, at the end of nine years, the same portion will be assigned to him. These causes are of themselves quite sufficient to render all prospects of real progress illusory, and one is not surprised to find that since the emancipation, the average condition of the peasant, and of the land he is supposed to cultivate, has altered for the worse. In a very striking article in the Moscow Gazette, edited by M. Katkof, the leader of the National party, the writer, after depicting the miserable state of agricultural affairs, sums up by attributing it to the organization of the rural commu- nities. The real fact is that Russian communism was intimately bound up with Russian serfdom, apart from which it could not have existed so long. Dr. Eckhardt remarks, with great justice, "The numberless and unremedied deficiencies in the existence of the peasant which had arisen from the undivided share in the soil, were for the first time laid bare by the abolition of serfdom, and revealed the indisputable fact that the personal freedom of the peasant, and his dependence, in an agricultural point of view, on the community who bound him hand and foot were thoroughly incompatible. Nothing was left to the unconditional adherents of communism, if they had any sense of the rules of logic, but to return to serfdom." The ukaz which decreed the abolition of serfdom ought also to have doomed communism to destruction ; but the Government, anxious to establish the new relationship between the proprietor and the peasant as speedily as possible, was chary of increasing the difficulty of carrying out its plans by meddling with the existing communistic arrangements. Until, however, the Russian commune be swept away, the Emancipa- tion Act will remain incomplete and useless, nay more, it cannot but prove a positive detriment to the State. Dr. Eckhardt doea not consider the question of Russian communism except from a public and agricultural point of view. Had he followed it into its
tearing on family life and private morals, he might have adduced startling facts in abundance wherewith to strengthen the argu- ments against its perpetuation.
Our author's account of the Greek Orthodox Church in Russia, and its sects is extremely interesting. The Russ clergy are divided Auto two classes, the "black," or monks, and the "white," or secularists. To the former class belong the bishops and higher dignitaries, as well as the directors and instructors of the religious seminaries ; to the latter, the working clergy of the towns and villages. The first practise celibacy, the others are obliged to marry. The priest must espouse a virgin, and should he lose his wife, is not permitted to marry again. He must either become a 'monk or cease to be a clergyman altogether. Should he choose the former alternative, his admission into the dominant class does oot greatly improve his prospects, as he is but seldom allowed to vise to high office in the Church. Should he adopt the latter, he is -free to turn to any occupation he pleases. The white clergy are looked down upon by the black, and generally either spring from an inferior class, or are men who have failed to pass the examina- tions requisite for admission into the ranks of the upper order. They are wretchedly paid, and the village pope or priest is fre- quently obliged to eke out a scanty subsistence by manual labour. This fact may account, at least, to some extent, for the want of reverence with which they are treated by their flock. Another cause is probably to be found in the annual visitations of the bishop and the eparchial authorities. The unfortunate priest is examined before his own congregation in his own church as to his knowledge of the catechism and the doctrines of the faith, and rarely gets off without a severe repri- mand of some sort or another. The way in which vacant benefices are often filled up is sufficiently curious. When a clergyman dies leaving daughters—and they generally do leave daughters—his successor is commonly found by his widow in some young aspirant for clerical honours, who takes the living together with one of the daughters to wife, and at the same time guarantees .a home to the widow. This arrangement is sanctioned by the bishop, and one can easily imagine the sardonic smile with which 'the celibate superior—debarred from matrimony—signs the docu- ment which saddles his, in some respects perhaps more fortunate, brother with a mother-in-law for life. This system, albeit its baying been so general as to countenance the keeping of registers of eligible young ladies, is now gradually falling into desuetude. While the white clergy are systematically kept in a state of dependence and poverty, their black brethren are extremely rich. One great source of revenue arises from fees paid for baptisms, anarriages, burials, masses, &c. All the monasteries possess ceme- teries, and as, according to popular belief, these places are able to iforward departed foals more speedily to Paradise, the interments there are very numerous. The lowest fee for a single burial in the Alexander Newski Monastery at St. Petersburg is 1,500 rubles, about £200, and in the Sergief-Troitskoi, near Moscow, it is still larger.
. The most powerful sect in Russia is that of the Raskolnikoi or Old Believers, who date from 1657. In that year the patriarch Nikon carried out a revision of the mass-books and rituals, which, owing to the errors of ignorant copyists, had caused considerable alteration in the old teaching of the Greek Church. But the majority of the people and the inferior clergy, with one solitary bishop at their head, still clung to them, and nine years later were solemnly banned as heretics in a council held for that purpose. At the death of their bishop, the Old Believers became subdivided into priestless sects, and sects still possessing ordained ministers. The former held that the link of apostolical ordination was broken, their bishop having died without consecrating any other bishop ; the latter recruited the ranks of their clergy by secessions from the dominant church. At the present day, they are connived at, if not tolerated, by the Government, with which they have come to some tacit kind of understanding. Their history in Dr. Eckhardt's bands reads more like a romance than the recital of sober fact ; but as our space forbids the pursuit of this tempting theme, we must be content with referring our readers to the book itself.
The concluding division of Dr. Eckhardt's work is devoted to the Baltic provinces of Russia, Esthonia, Livonia, and Courland. From the thirteenth to the fifteenth century they formed a federa- tive State, under the collective name of Livland and Livonia, acknowledging the supremacy of the Emperor of Germany. So irresistible had been the tide of German immigration, that the aborigines, the Baths, Letts, Livs, and Cures were soon forced to acknowledge the strangers as lords of the country. But after the• decay of the Order of the Teutonic Knights they fell a prey, one after the other, to the rapacious maw of Russia, with various vicissitudes and at different intervals. But their civilization has never ceased to be German ; everything that does not belong to the peasant class is German in its character, and when a peasant becomes rich, his first care is to educate his children and make Germans of them as fast as possible, even though he himself may continue to take pride in declaring his distinctive origin. So generally is this the case, that Dr. Eckhardt regards the German- ization of the aborigines as an accomplished fact. The prevailing religion of the country is Lutheranism, though no pains are spared in the propagation of the Greek orthodox faith. In 1840, some 100,000 of the Letts and Esths, pressed by famine, were converted to the Russian Church. They soon, however, re- pented this step, and vast numbers of them petitioned to be allowed to return to their former religion. This was refused. A system of persecution begun, to which the people offered a dogged resistance. The Russian democratic party hounded on the Government whose measures were not severe enough for their taste. The struggle still continues, becoming more and more embittered ever,y day, and it will have a considerable share in bringing about the new future which is rapidly approaching. It is perhaps scarcely necessary to remark that the Russian national party are vehemently opposed to the German civilization in the Baltic provinces. Ever since the Polish rebellion of 1863, their organs have not ceased to preach a crusade against it, nor have they shrunk from advocating such extreme measures as the abolition of the German tongue, the annihilation of the Lutheran religion, and the division of the lands of German proprietors among the Esthic and Lettic peasants. In 1867 the Russian language was ordered the be used instead of German in the transaction of business, and in correspondence with other State authorities, but justice was still allowed to be administered in the old tongue. This was necessary, inasmuch as it rests on an exclusively German basis, and consequently can never be interpreted by other than German or German-educated judges and jurists. The Livonian Diet, in consternation at this change, voted an address to the Emperor praying him to restore the un- fettered use of the German language. He refused to receive this address, and the only result was that German governors and other officials were dismissed in all directions and Russians appointed in their stead. In 1868, a venomous pamphlet appeared charging the provinces with having been for the last twenty years system- atically preparing to separate from Russia and join Prussia. The clamour of the " national " journals broke out afresh, and it soon became known that the Government had in contemplation certain agrarian measures of reform—so called—which would reduce the majority of the proprietors to ruin. The intercession of the Governor-General alone prevented the execution of this plan, but the propagandism of the Russian democrats still goes on, and the project is probably only deferred for a while ; there is no length to which Russian persecu- tion is not prepared to go. Dr. Eckhardt does not indulge in speculations as to the probable results of these violent attempts at sweeping away in a moment a civilization which has been grow- ing up during seven centuries ; but unmistakable indications are not wanting. The Russian Government and the Russian democrats in their unreasoning fanaticism have done their best to render these provinces untenable by Russia. Their case is very different from that of Poland, which had no powerful friends at her back, and able German politicians assert that the day is not so very far distant when they will be incorporated with regenerated Germany. The Russian authorities themselves seem to be apprehensive of even more immediate danger. It is only a few weeks ago that the Governor-General threatened to resign unless 12,000 troops were despatched to his assistance, and sixteen regiments of Don Cossacks have in consequence been sent into the country. Whether or no this incorporation will be peacefully effected cannot at present be decided. The provinces may form the price, stipulated in a secret treaty, for the connivance, if not the actual help, of Prussia in certain acquisitions in a different quarter. Prussia, become Germany in 1870, is a very different power from the bundle of scattered provinces of the era of the Crimean war ; and there are those, on the other hand, who maintain that war between Germany and Russia is a foregone conclusion, in spite of present appearances. If, they say, it does not occur in the lifetime of the present Emperor, it will come in the reign of his son, whose pro- clivities, are generally believed to be strongly anti-German. One thing is certain, Germany, with its cherished dream of becoming a great maritime power, cannot be indifferent to the possession of a sea-board which stretches along the shores of the Baltic up to the mouth of the Neva ; and sooner or later the Baltic provinces will form an important part of the modern German Empire.
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